


The Glue

by WritingPains



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)
Genre: Brotherly Love, Good Parent Splinter (TMNT), Hallucinations, Hurt Michelangelo (TMNT), Kidnapping, Medical Experimentation, Medical Trauma, Michelangelo (TMNT)-centric, Mild Fan Fic Crossover, Protective Donatello (TMNT), Protective Leonardo (TMNT), Protective Raphael, Psychological Torture, Rescue Missions, Sick Michelangelo (TMNT), Tony Stark in a Dream, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:01:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22903633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingPains/pseuds/WritingPains
Summary: Months alone in the lair left Mikey feeling like his family didn't love him.Then, Stockman comes and takes Mikey away, and it's up to the brothers to band together to save him.Unfortunately, Mikey can't tell the difference between fiction and reality.
Relationships: Donatello & Leonardo & Michelangelo & Raphael (TMNT)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 202





	The Glue

The Glue

Michelangelo stares at the T-phone, eyes widening. Words flash on the screen and it shivers on the tabletop, the noise grating and gut-clenching at the same time. Master Splinter is calling. It’s been six months since he left, and he must be on his way back now. That’s when he said he would call again. He promised. But still, Mikey is apprehensive as he picks up the phone, hands shaking, worried that his dad will tell him that he’s extending his time away.

Mikey isn’t sure he can handle that.

“Father,” Michelangelo whispers, pulling the phone to his face.

“Michelangelo, are you there?”

A wry grin spreads across his face, though he holds the phone a little away from his ear. Splinter hasn’t quite understood that you don’t need to shout into the phone to be heard.

“How do I answer this phone?”

“Father,” Michelangelo repeats, louder.

“Ah, my son. I have tried to contact your brothers, but I can’t seem to get a hold of them.”

 _Yeah, you and me both,_ he thinks to himself bitterly.

“Are you coming home?”

Hope. It seeps into his words, revealing his weaknesses. He doesn’t want to be alone anymore. He wants his dad back. He wants his family back.

“I am. I am only an hour away.”

Michelangelo smiles brightly.

“I’ll boil some water, Sensei. For your tea!”

“Thank you, my son.”

The phone goes quiet and Mikey puts it back on the table, watching it carefully, in case Splinter calls back and admits that he made a mistake.

No such call comes. His father really is coming home. He’s not going to be alone anymore!

Michelangelo feels a shade lighter than he had moments ago. The lair brightens up, and for the first time since the last brother left, Michelangelo isn’t bored. But he does feel a slight pang of panic.

“Oh man,” he laments as he observes the months of mess he’s allowed to grow. “Splinter’s gonna flip.”

He grabs a half-filled trash bag from behind the couch and speeds around the apartment, throwing in mouldy pizzas and empty candy wrappers. Cleared of garbage, he tries to wipe everything down. There’s an unhealthy layer of dust coating every surface, and Mikey finds himself rushing back to rinse the cloth clean again and again. Five minutes before Splinter is due back, Mikey is still trying to clean things up.

“My sons!”

Blood going cold, Mikey turns around to face his father. The place doesn’t look so bad now, but that’s not why Mikey suddenly feels very sick and extremely anxious.

“Mikey, did you forget to tell your brothers of my return?”

Silence.

“Michelangelo?”

“It’s so good to have you back, Sensei.”

Mikey wants a hug. He wants contact with another living being. But the way Splinter is looking around at the lair suggests that maybe he’ll be shouted at first.

“Michelangelo, where are your brothers?”

Not a single lie comes to mind, and Mikey isn’t convinced that he’s upset about it. His brothers don’t deserve his protection. Not from their dad. Not after they left him on his own for _months_ without much of a word.

“They’re, uh, out.”

Something that Mikey doesn’t understand flashes through his father’s eyes.

“How long have they been gone?”

Mikey rubs the back of his neck and looks towards his brothers’ bedroom doors.

“‘Bout six months.”

Splinters mouth thins and he opens his arms. Knowing an invitation when he sees one, Mikey throws himself into his father’s arms. He doesn’t cry, though a lump is steadily filling his throat. It’s been so long that it hurts to be held.

“You must have been so lonely, my son.”

Mikey only nods. Words won’t come without consequence.

“I assume you know that your brothers are safe?”

Mikey nods again, not yet ready to explain how. Splinter rubs his back as he takes several steadying breaths.

“Donnie helped, even if he didn’t intend to,” Mikey finally manages to get out. “He put tracers on all the phones. I know where everyone is.”

“Well then. It’s time to bring your brothers home, hm?”

Mikey says nothing.

“I’ll go, shall I?”

Jumping, Mikey panics to find something to say.

“No, Sensei! You must be tired from your travels, I’ll—”

“I am not so old that I am unable to travel. Besides, once I’ve found one, I can send him to find the others. How does that sound?”

Mikey nods.

Sensei heads out almost immediately, and Mikey takes the kettle from the hob. He frowns at the hand that shakes and drops his arms to his side.

If his brothers don’t want to be around him, that’s fine. He’s had a lot of time to think while he’s been stuck here, and he understands that maybe he’s not the best at anything on the team. He’s the comic relief, but Donnie’s quick wit and Raph’s dry humour can easily replace Mikey’s constant chatter. He’s probably more annoying than anything else. He never can seem to shut up when they want him to. It’s like a compulsion to speak. His brothers shouldn’t have to deal with that.

He’s not going to be the hardest hitter, the smartest turtle, or ever capable of leading. It would be foolish to expect that of himself. No wonder they all left. He’s useless in light of them.

Mikey wanders the empty lair, tidying up where he can. He might as well try to make it nicer for when his brothers come home. Maybe he should become a stay-at-home turtle? He already does most of the cooking. He might not be the cleanest, but he can certainly change that. With enough time, he can probably keep the lair spotless, his brothers fed, and have enough time to become a better ninja.

He’s thought about it before. Considered that maybe he’s better off doing something other than patrolling. The hours after Splinter left, Mikey watched as Leo crept out the front door, followed by Raph ten minutes later and Donnie an hour later. He’d wondered then if the reason they didn’t invite him was because he wouldn’t be as useful as they were, wherever they were going.

They barely let Splinter's trail run cold before they decided to run.

Maybe all Mikey needs to stop them from being harassed by his thoughts is some time away from weighing his brothers down while out on patrol. Sensei will understand. He’s always suggesting that they do what they can to improve, and his brothers will be relieved.

Yeah, Mikey decides. This is a great idea.

He continues to clean, feeling rather proud of himself for making such a mature decision. He drops his Nunchuck’s in the dojo for now. He feels much lighter now, calmer. Everything is going to be A-Ok.

No. It’s not.

The discomfort of lying to himself is like a smack on his head.

Mikey doesn’t want to be here when they get back. He doesn’t want to watch them grudgingly coming home when they made it oh-so-clear that they didn’t want to be there. That they didn’t want to be around him.

No. He’ll come back tonight after he’s sure they’ve gone to sleep. He’ll be fine for a few hours. Maybe it’ll give him time to clear his head.

* * *

Hopping from rooftop to rooftop, Mikey feels a thrill of exhilaration. The fresh air (at least, as fresh as New York air can be), the wind on his face, the general feeling of being _free_ ; it's more than enough to blow Mikey’s problems from his mind.

Stopping on one particular roof, one of Mikey’s favourite because the view is so stunning, he takes a moment to marvel at the world and take a breath.

Mikey hears footsteps, and his stomach turns. He hops into the shadows, searching for the source. The chill clings to his sweat, and he shivers as he turns around, realising that he’s put his back to the danger.

“I have a gun. Don’t try anything.”

_Stupid, stupid, stupid._

* * *

Mikey blinks stupidly. His hand instinctively goes to his waist, but his Nunchuck’s are still in the lair.

Stupid, stupid, _stupid_.

Baxter Stockman stands in the doorway of the rooftop entry, half his face burned to scar-tissue and his left eye covered with an eye-patch. Behind him stand two dozen foot soldiers. Stockman has a handgun aimed at Mikey’s chest and a victoriously smug smile to accompany it.

“Come with us quickly, and this can be painless,” Stockman tells him. “For now.”

Mikey’s eyes sweep over the small army and he calculates his chance of survival. A ninja is nothing if they rely solely on their weapons, but without his at his side, the chances of winning are too low to risk it. He’s not sure what they want with him, but if they wanted to kill him, he’d be on the floor now.

“They’ll come after me,” Mikey warns. “And, dude, I don’t want to be _that guy_ , but you don’t have the best track record of beating my brothers.”

“Write a note,” Stockman barks.

“What?”

“A note. Tell them you’re… running away. You’re the stupid one, right? I’m sure they’ll believe it. Write it. Now.”

There’s a notepad in Stockman’s hands, and Mikey steps towards it, arms raised. Stockman gets closer, out of arms reach, but close enough that Mikey won’t be able to dodge the bullet. He throws the notebook and pen on the floor.

Mikey picks the two up and stares.

What to write? And why does Stockman think his brothers will find it?

‘S’up, loser Turtles. Peace Out. I Can’t stay Kooped up. i’M running Away. Sorry, Nerds.’

Stockman leers at his note, and nods. Six foot soldiers advance, and Mikey is led away calmly, scared to feel hopeful.

* * *

“Sensei!”

Raph almost falls off the building top in surprise. He manages to right himself and then cowers under the glare his father is sending his way.

“You’re back early.”

“I’m back at exactly the time I said I would be,” Splinter counters with a raise of his eyebrows. “But you were not there when I returned.”

Raph tries to count the days in his head and comes up blank.

“It’s been six months?”

Splinter nods.

“Damn.”

“Indeed. You must find your brothers.”

“Why? Where are they?”

“That is a question we have no answer to.”

“Those knuckleheads,” Raph mutters to himself. “Betcha Mikey has been hiding out in arcades.”

“Michelangelo has been at home.”

Dread hits him like a water balloon, sending chills of anxiety down his spine. He almost doesn’t want to ask the only question on his mind, but he knows that he should. He knows he needs clarity.

“Alone?”

Splinter nods and Raph gulps. Aside from the worry about the obvious damage that the turtle can inflict upon anything if given time, there’s another big problem that Raph has with this new information. Imagining Mikey on his own for even a week is painful enough. Months? He’d be surprised if Mikey ever spoke to any of them again. He’s not built to live alone, not yet at least.

He’s still so… young isn’t the word. They’re all the same age, really. But Mikey is innocent in a lot of ways that the rest of them aren’t anymore. He’s too childish. Too immature. He needs someone to watch him to keep him out of trouble.

And they left him alone.

Oh, man.

“Your brother misses you dearly, my son. You should find your brothers and return to the lair soon.”

Raph nods, and Splinter disappears.

“Who left last?” Raph thinks as he turns around. “At least I know where they’ll be.”

* * *

Raph finds Donatello first. He’s camped out in a cellar close to the local technical university campus. Unsurprisingly, the turtle is sleeping face first on his desk, surrounded by paper with highlights of different colours across them. There is also a large pile of books and a worn-down laptop computer.

“Donnie.”

Donatello groans and Raph steps away to avoid Donnie’s tired swats.

“Wake up, idiot, it’s me.”

Donnie comes to slowly, and Raph feels a swell of pride that even six months apart, Don still instinctively trusts Raph enough not to wake up fighting.

“Raph?”

“Hey, bro. Splinter’s home and we’re in trouble.”

Donnie groans again.

“But first, we find Leo.”

“But first,” Donnie mumbles with a tired frown, “I pack up my stuff and change my status to a distance learner.”

Raph says nothing but slowly begins to move books and pens into a box. Donnie rewards him with a grateful smile, and Raph realises that he’s missed him. He’s missed his family.

* * *

It doesn’t take as long as it could have to find their fearless leader since Leonardo is as predictable as all of them. He’s sat in a small garden on the rooftop in China town, meditating.

“Splinter is back?” Leo asks, eyes still closed.

Raph frowns. Six months, and that’s the first thing his big bro says to him? With a nod, Leo’s shoulders sag.

“Man, I’m going to be in so much trouble.”

It’s with a wry smile that Leo finally shows some of his age. Raph’s shoulders lose a little of the tension, and he offers a hand, and even though Leo doesn’t need it, he lets himself be hauled to his feet.

“Not just you, Leo. All three of us. If Raph is to be believed, Mikey has been home alone for six months.”

“Wait, what?” Leo narrows his eyes and Raph clenches his fist in response. “You two didn’t stay?”

“Pull the other one, Leo. You can’t land the blame on our shoulders and call it fair game. You left too,” Raph hisses.

“I left _first_.”

“No, I did,” Donnie argues.

“No, I left first,” Raph hisses.

“Did we all leave the moment splinter did?”

The three brothers erupt into an argument. ‘I didn’t know’, ‘I didn’t tell you because you’d make me stay’, and ‘If none of us were home, who was looking after Mikey’ are thrown around like grenades, unanswered and unwanted. The heat grows until Raph is the one to cool it. Unsurprising, but as far as he’s concerned, they don’t have time to argue about who’s at fault when Mikey is likely anxious to have them back.

The sooner they go home, the sooner they can work on being forgiven.

“Ok,” Raph calls over his brothers, “so we all left. We all mucked up. Now, we need to face the music and head home. Understand?”

Leo nods, offering that stupid serene look that Raph hates and admires in equal parts. Even in the face of their ultimate demise – Mikey’s sadness is fatal –, he still holds his head high.

“Gee, Splinter is gonna be shell-a angry, huh?” Donnie says as they race over the rooftops.

“We’re gonna be grounded forever,” Raph agrees.

“Let’s focus on getting home before we even start to worry about the aftermath. As Splinter says, worry is dreading what has not yet happened.”

“First, that’s not the saying. It’s barely even the gist,” Donnie complains. “Second, can we agree that these things sound better from Splinter than they do from any of us?”

“Aye,” Leo agrees. “I still feel uneasy whenever Mikey tries to use one of his proverbs.”

Raph laughs gruffly as he swings down the fire escape and lands soundlessly by a man-hole cover.

“Time to go home.”

* * *

Splinter is waiting for them as they walk through the doors.

Raph notices that something is up almost immediately. Aside from the fact that the place looks almost clean – not expected, considering that Mikey was living alone for six months – there is also a silence that washes over the room.

Silence doesn’t exist wherever Mikey is.

Mikey isn’t here.

“Sensei?”

“Your brother is not here.”

Raph groans, hands moving to his Sai’s. Frustration builds up, but he clenches his teeth.

“Any idea where he’s gone?” Leo asks.

“I imagine he needed some time alone.”

“…alone?” Donnie says slowly. “He’s been alone for six months.”

“Yes. I do not presume to understand how your brothers mind works, Donatello. However, I will say this; regardless of how he will smile, and pretend things are OK, six months of solitary life will not be easy for him to overcome. You have much to repair.”

“Yes Sensei,” Raph says with a gulp.

“Now, I must rest. My travels have been long. It is good to be home and it is good to see you, my sons.”

The three brothers stand in the middle of the dojo as their father closes the door of his room behind him.

Silence joins them, but it’s an anxious quiet. The kind of quiet that highlights what is missing and Leo closes his eyes. Raph waits, a finger tapping against his thigh impatiently.

He wants to go out and find Mikey. He wants to apologise. But he understands why his bro might put off their reunion.

“We have to find him,” Leo says.

“If he decided to take a breather—” Donnie begins.

“He’s left his Nunchuck’s behind.”

Raph’s stomach flips when he spots the weapons on the small table. Mikey wouldn’t be so stupid as to head _outside_ without a weapon, would he?

“Ok, sure, we go find him,” Donnie agrees, wide eyes staring at the Nunchuck’s.

“What’re we waiting around for?” Raph asks, picking up the Nunchuck’s and tucking them into his belt. “Let’s go.”

* * *

They run and jump across the Manhattan skyline, saying nothing, but the familiarity thrums through Raph like a sickness.

He’s never been sentimental before, so why is he starting now?

“Hey!”

Raph skids, sending a spray of gravel against his ankles. He was leading the charge, but when he turns, he finds Leo holding a piece of paper in one hand and a Shuriken in the other.

“What?”

Raph knows that the paper can’t hold good news. The look on Leo’s face paints an awful picture already.

“Geez, Mikey’s handwriting is appalling,” Donnie complains as he squints at the note.

Raph moves around to read over his brother's shoulder.

“Damn. He’s capitalised every other word. What does… _Stockman_?”

Donnie gasps in shock and then offers Raph a wide-eyed look.

“What? Mikey isn’t the only one who binged Sherlock, you know.”

Donnie’s wide-eyed panic reminds Raph of the situation and why maybe now isn’t the time to make jokes.

“So, Stockman isn’t dead, and he’s taken our brother.” The words taste like crud in his mouth. “Now what?”

“We find him,” Leo says, simply. “And bring him home.”

* * *

Raph follows behind Leo, and behind him, Donnie’s face is glowing under the light of whatever device he’s using to search for signs of their brother. While Leo is relying on their training in tracking, Donnie is working on the ‘modern problems require modern solutions’ ideology.

“Anything, Donnie?”

“His cell was left back in the lair, so no chance of tracking that. I can pick up traces of the foot, but they’re not Ninja’s for nothin’, Leo. We should try all the usual places, first.”

Leo pauses and looks between Raph and Donnie. Raph can see determination set in his face, but worry plagues his brother's brow, creasing the mask.

“Call Casey, Raph. You and he can search the old Foot tower. Donnie, you ask April for help. She’ll know more about Stockman than we do. Maybe she can offer insight, help us to find a lab where he may have taken Mikey.”

“And what about you?” Raph asks.

“Me?” Leo asks, a sly smile creeping over his face. “I’ll use the old ninja techniques. See if I can track them that way.”

“Ok. But, put the headsets on, guys. I want to be in constant contact. Whoever finds Mikey first calls for backup and waits for it. Understood?”

Leo nods.

“Raph?”

“Fine. But if you take too long, you can’t blame me if I go in proverbial guns blazing.”

“Fair. Turtles, out.”

“Don’t try to make that a thing, Leo.”

* * *

They split up.

Raph has seen enough of Mikey’s dumb cartoons to know that it’s an idiotic idea, but they always seem to come out on top anyway. Besides, if he and Casey go in, at least he knows the goons who took his brother will get what’s coming to ‘em.

“Yo, Case, meet up at Aprils. We’re going hunting.”

Casey needs no encouragement. He growls down the phone the instant Raph explains what has happened, and within ten minutes, the two are cruising the streets of Manhattan on Casey’s bike.

“Where’ve you been all this time, Raph?”

“Out.”

The reply is short, succinct, and Raph knows that his tone carries enough weight to remove any further desire to question him. Casey doesn’t bother to ask more questions. Raph wouldn’t have answered them anyway. Maybe that’s why the man chose to stay silent about it. Casey knows Raph almost as well as his brothers do. Sometimes, like now, it comes in handy. Other times, it’s more of a curse than anything.

The wind rushes against Raph’s exposed skin, and his blood rushes with adrenaline as they approach the tower. The windows are dark, and the once glowing foot symbol is now barely noticeable against the night sky.

“This gives me the heebie-jeebies,” Casey says, adding a shudder for emphasis.

“Yeah, same here. The foot caused us no end of troubles, and here we are, about to waltz inside like they ain’t the reason we got our shell kicked half a million times.”

“Quit jinxing it,” Casey groans.

Raph swings his legs over the bike and pulls his helmet off. They’ve parked down the side of an alley, allowing Raph to stick where the shadows lay. Casey, the bone-head, waltzes out of the alley and into the street. On his back, there is a golf bag filled with an assortment of sports equipment.

“Yo, idiot, get back here.”

“No, man. I don’t need to hide. I’m a human, remember.”

“A human with _weapons_ , Case. Use your head.”

With a roll of his eyes, Casey comes to stand at Raph’s side. Together, silently, they sneak towards the tower.

There’s no movement, and even from outside, Raph thinks it looks unlived in. There’s a coldness to the building, despite the sticky warm heat rising from the tarmac on the summers night.

“He’s not in there,” Casey says.

“No, but we have to check.”

Raph’s skin prickles as they pry away a service door. Inside is endless inky darkness and stale air, but Raph is a ninja. He is one with darkness.

“Ow!”

Casey? Not so much.

“Watch yourself, chucklehead. Stick to my six.”

“I can’t see you,” Case complains. “I don’t know where your six is.”

Raph sighs and reaches backwards, grabbing Casey by the straps of his golf bag.

“Come on. I’ll be both our eyes.”

* * *

Mikey strains against the cold metal strips holding him to the operating table. His wrists grow tired with the effort, and a headache is building behind his eyes, like a balloon that won’t stop inflating.

The room, which has been dark since he woke up, is suddenly filled with bright, painful lights, and Mikey cries out, closing his eyes and turning his face to the side.

“Ah, the youngest turtle. The loudest, the most untrained, the one with the least focus.”

“Weird intro, but I’ll take whatever I can get.”

Mikey’s vision clears slowly, and before he has time to cry out in shock, a hand grips his face, fingers digging into his cheeks painfully and forcefully pulling his gaze to Stockman.

“What a treat to be able to play host for the most annoying guest.”

Mikey spits on the man. It looked like such a power move in all the movies, but it simply serves to remind Mikey that for now, he’s reduced to only that. He’s never been more vulnerable in his life. Wasn’t he the Battle Nexus Champion™? And yet, here he is. Strapped to a table, _again._ And alone.

Again.

“Go die,” Mikey adds.

“Oh how I’m going to enjoy this,” Baxter exclaims as he turns his back on Mikey to rifle through a large pile of terrifying looking tools. “Your unique biology coupled with my superior intellect will truly bring about some remarkable results. I’ll finally be seen for the genius that I am.”

Mikey frowns. Stockman is a lot of things, but most of all, he’s annoying. Mikey might have issues with being humble, but Stockman can’t seem to let a moment go by without referencing his IQ. Mikey is one million percent sure that Donnie is the smartest person in the world, and he rarely makes note of it.

“You think you’re all that, but you’re not.”

Stockman’s eyes narrow, and a red tinge reaches his cheeks.

“Do you know how hard it is for someone like me to get where I am?” he shouts, the anger so strong and sudden that Mikey flinches. “I had to work _twice as hard_. That means I’m twice as smart as everyone else.”

“Yeah? That why you ended up working for a squishy alien overlord and running your own business into the ground?”

Stockman’s shoulders rise up until they’re touching his ears, but then he deflates, a small, dangerous smile curling at his lips.

“Yeah. I’m really going to enjoy this.”

Mikey’s stomach fills with ice as Stockman lifts a sharp tool up to Mikey’s face.

“Let’s see what’s underneath all this _green_ , shall we?”

* * *

Raph, with Casey’s bag strap in one hand, surges further into the darkness. There’s no movement other than themselves, and Raph is about ready to call it off, but then he hears a scream.

Mikey’s scream.

“We need to help him!” Casey shouts, surging forward.

“Hold up, Case,” Raph growls. His voice is strained, and he feels every ounce of energy he carries flare-up. “We need to get the guys in. We need to think this through. If you go in like some… hothead, you’re risking all of our lives.”

Casey’s struggle drops, and Raph presses a button on the side of his headset.

“Hey, Don, I’ve found him. Baxter brought him to the Foot Tower.”

If they can hear the anxiety lacing his voice, no one comments.

“We’ll be there in five.”

Mikey’s scream rings out through the room again, and it takes all of Raph’s sense of logic to avoid following and putting an end to whoever thought that they could hurt his little brother.

“We’re not alone,” Raph says, suddenly.

Casey shifts until his back is to Raph’s. Even if Casey can’t see or hear the foot, and Raph would bet his Sai’s that the dude can’t, he still trusts enough to take him at his word. It’s for the best, really, since a second later, the fighting starts.

* * *

Mikey tries to bite back the pain, but it’s overwhelming. Baxter’s snarling smile brightens with every decibel higher Mikey’s screams reach.

He writhes on the table, the skin around his wrists and ankles weakening and tearing. He can’t even feel that pain anymore. The other pain, the pain inflicted by Stockman, is overwhelming his systems and numbing him to everything else. The burning line down his side, the fire crawling through his veins, the way his screams have seared his throat. The pain is like nothing he’s ever experienced.

He tries to distract himself, tries to imagine his brothers coming. Tries to visualise them bursting through the door, weapons raised, determined to save their stupid, weak, idiotic brother.

No.

There’s no reason for them to want to come. There’s no saying that Sensei has even managed to find them. And there’s no way for them to know that he’s _gone._ Even if they do find the note, which they likely won’t, there’s no saying that they’d even look further than the writing. None of them thinks him smart enough to have left a secret message behind. He’s never shown an ounce of smarts before.

And does Mikey really want them to come? To face Stockman and whoever else he has here? That’s selfish, right? Maybe. If you’d have asked him six months ago, he’d have called it being part of a family. It was his brothers' duty, just as much as it would be his to save his family.

Now he’s not so sure where he stands with that. Family.

 _I must have done something wrong,_ he thinks. _There’s no way they would have left otherwise._

So, no brothers in shining armour. Just Mikey, Stockman, and a world of pain.

“Don’t pass out on me yet,” Stockman growls.

Mikey tries to give him a look, one that says ‘what the hell are you talking about, you crazy weirdo, I’m not passing out’ but when he tilts his head to the side, the world darkens, and his consciousness hangs on a loose thread.

Sleep sounds good right now.

His body seems to lose all of its strength, and he tumbles into darkness. Just as he’s embracing an out for the pain, he’s suddenly yanked back into consciousness by a vicious smell.

“Is that _cat pee_?” Mikey cries out, jerking back – or, at least, trying to – and then hissing in pain even as his body fills with adrenaline. It sets alight to all his pain.

The long line of sliced skin on Mikey’s side shrieks with agony. Stockman, with a notebook on hand and a weird, metal stick with a light on the end, sits back down to continue his work.

Mikey does what he can to ignore the fact Stockman is cutting him open like a frog in science class.

* * *

Lights suddenly wash over the room, and the butts of Raph’s Sai’s come crashing down on the temples of a Foot soldier. The soldier crumples to the ground, and Raph tries to blink the spots from his vision.

“Raph, you in here?”

Raph turns towards the voice, steps to the side and then snakes a leg out to bring down the foot soldier that was about to bring their sword down onto his shoulder.

“Over here, bro,” Raph shouts back. “Mikey is in here somewhere. Unfortunately, so are the Foot.”

“You don’t say?” Donnie snarks with a roll of his eyes. “I’ll go find Mikey; you two stay here.”

“Hey, Don!”

“Yeah?”

“Bring him back in one piece, would ya?”

Don leaves with a curt nod of his head and disappears through a doorway and out of Raph’s sight. Leo flips over a group of foot, taking some down with his Katana’s while overhead. He lands on Raph’s left, and Case steps back, effectively forming a circle.

“Reckon we can take them all?” Casey asks out of the side of his mouth.

“We’ve taken more,” Leo shrugs.

“That we have, Leo. That we have.”

* * *

Mikey jerks away from Baxter’s hand as it moves to slide a pair of goggles over his head.

“Get off,” Mikey screams. “Don’t! _Don’t!”_

Baxter’s delighted cackle reaches his ears as the goggles snap against his face. Agony slides up his side as he struggles, starting as a dull roar and quickly erupting into a sonic boom. Gasping, Mikey’s eyes roll into the back of his head.

* * *

“Mikey? Hey, Mikey, wake up.”

Mikey’s eyelids feel like rocks, and he groans.

“That’s right, wakey wakey.”

“D-Donnie?”

Mikey’s vision flutters, but when he finds Donnie standing directly in front of him, it’s like wakefulness has smacked him with Nunchucks.

“Donnie!”

Mikey strains against the table. His wrists are still locked tight, and Mikey smiles sheepishly.

“Little help, bro?”

Donnie smile, and takes a step back.

“No surprise really, is it?”

Mikey swallows, unsure what is happening.

“What?”

“This? You getting yourself into trouble, expecting us to get you out? So typical ‘Mikey’.”

“Come on Don, this isn’t the time. Just-just let me down.”

Donnie’s smile turns malicious, and something acidic slides down Mikey’s throat, like swallowing a hot rock.

“Donnie?” Mikey whispers.

“Honestly, Mikey, these last six months have been amazing. No little brother to keep out of trouble, no fights, no distractions. I thought I was excited to come home, but I was met with another problem that my idiot brother got himself into.”

Mikey gulps, watching as Donnie paces.

“I think that maybe you need to get yourself out of this one. It’ll teach you responsibility.”

And with that, Donnie leaves.

Mikey screams after him, _begging_ him to come back, but Donnie’s ninja light footsteps disappear, and Mikey is left alone again.

* * *

Mikey watches with tired eyes as Stockman returns. He doesn’t renew his struggle as a large blade is pulled from a rolled out tool belt.

“Feeling tired yet, little turtle?”

Mikey doesn’t know how to reply to that. Stockman would laugh if he said yes, and double-down if he said no. Instead, he keeps his mouth closed. It’s for the best really, because a second later, blood spurts from the man’s head and splatters across Mikey’s face.

“Wha—”

The tip of something metal retracts from Stockman’s head, and the mad scientist crumples to the floor, revealing a smiling Raphael.

“Raph?”

“Yeah, bro. It’s me. How’re you holding up?”

“Holding. Not that I have a choice.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

Raph points a Sai at Mikey.

“What happened?”

Mikey tries to shrug, but searing pain explodes along his side, effectively cutting him off from any attempt to downplay the injuries.

Raph pales as his eyes trail along the damage done by Stockman, and then he growls.

_There’s the protective idiot I remember._

“Donnie’s gonna need to stitch you up,” Raph mutters, swallowing. “Let’s get you down.”

Mikey decides to hold off on telling him that Don wanted him to get himself out of this mess. Raph puts the tip of the non-bloodied Sai between the table and the metal strap, ready to leverage it open, but then Raph goes still.

And then he dies.

“No!” Mikey screams out, struggling again. “Raph! No!”

“Did you think I would be taken down so easily?”

Stockman’s voice is like ice in Mikey’s veins. Rising again, like a phoenix from the ashes, the mad scientist wipes away one of Mikey’s tears.

“Crying won’t save you.”

“But I will.”

Metal slashes through the air and Stockman is killed again.

“Leo, you need to run!”

“Not without you, Mikey. Come on. Let’s go!”

Leo tries to get Mikey down, but one false move exacerbates the already excruciating pain, and Mikey falls into unconsciousness.

* * *

Mikey wakes up again, still on the table. Opposite, he can see two boxes. On top of one is a red face mask, and on the other, a blue face mask.

“No.”

“Yes.”

Stockman comes into view, bags under his eyes but with a wicked tilt to his mouth. He gestures towards the boxes with a hand holding a long, bloodied knife. When he turns back to Mikey, he uses a piece of cloth to start cleaning it off.

“Your brothers were easy to take out. They didn’t expect me. But I expected them.”

Mikey looks over Stockman, taking in the band-aid on his forehead and stitching that runs from his right eye all the way down under his shirt. There’s no way he could have survived those two attacks individually, let alone both together.

What was it that Donnie had told him? The brain runs the body? Stockman _should_ be deader than a doornail if his brain was sliced in half. There’s just _no way._

“How?” Mikey croaks.

“With a little genius and a lot of funding from our old pal, the shredder.”

Pressure rises up through Mikey like a tidal wave, and when he opens his mouth to let it out, a sob pours out.

“Your grief has no place here,” Stockman tells him sharply.

Mikey doesn’t care. He has no reason to care. Stockman has taken it away. And now, he has no reason to live. None at all.

* * *

“Mikey, come on Buddy. Now is no time to nap. Wake up, we need to get you out of here.”

Mikey’s mind supplies a picture of Donnie, but he’s scared to open his eyes just to have his brother turn away.

“Mikey?”

“You’re not here,” Mikey whispers.

“Of course I am.”

A hand touches his face, and it’s warmth carries a weight of something he can’t discern right now. When he opens his eyes, Donnie is there, mask crumpled in concern.

“Leo, Raph—” Mikey tries. Any further words die in his throat. “I — I—”

“Mikey don’t talk. You’ll bleed out.”

“You left.”

“I— what?”

Mikey stares hard, waiting for Don to remember, for him to realise he made a mistake in coming back.

“No. Mikey, I didn’t leave. I never came.”

“But—”

“Stockman has some pretty crazy drugs running through you, little bro. Maybe it was a hallucination?”

Mikey can’t say. He wants it to have been. But then, he wants Leo and Raph to have been a hallucination too.

“I don’t know.”

Donnie reaches up to unstrap Mikey.

“We’ll get you out of here soon, Mikey.”

“We?”

“We.”

The boxes in the back start to shake and Donnie’s hands drop to his side. He turns slowly, leaving Mikey to hang and watch on, powerless to do anything else.

From Raph’s box, a hand punches upwards. His body emerges next, growling, skin on his face decaying and revealing his skull underneath. Leo’s box shakes next, and he appears, a bandage holding his head to his shoulders.

“Guys?”

Donnie’s voice shakes. His arm reaches back as he pulls his Bō staff out.

“Guys, you Ok?”

Raph growls again, and then launches forward, Sai’s coming down on Donnie’s shoulder. Don dodges to the side, staff knocking Raph’s hand away. Leo comes in second, Katana slicing through the air.

“Stop!” Mikey screams, writhing and wincing.

Leonardo strikes again, catching Donnie’s leg, bringing him to his knee. Raph slides in behind, a Sai cutting across Don’s shell, knocking him forward.

“No! Leave him alone!”

Donnie, broken and weakened, reaches out for Mikey, but another blow comes, pushing him down and taking his life.

Mikey screams. He pleads. He begs. And then the light hits his eyes and he hisses.

“I hope you enjoyed your inflight movie,” Stockman chuckles. “There’s more where that came from.”

Mikey, heart racing fast enough that it rocks his body, breath heaving until it feels like he’s going to drown, frantically searches for the bodies of his family. His gaze sweeps the floor, the walls, the door for signs that his brothers perished here, but he finds nothing.

“Confused? Well, let me fill in the blanks for you, you stupid child. What you experienced was a long hallucination that lasted mere seconds on this end. Another of my genius creations.”

His brothers aren’t dead? He imagined it? None of it was real?

“How about we try for another. It’ll keep you distracted while I continue my experimentations.”

Mikey has no power here. No way out. No means nothing in these walls. He says nothing.

“I thought so.”

Mikey closes his eyes and there’s a pressure on his face.

“— paralysed, I think.”

“Hey, he’s waking up!”

Mikey whimpers. He doesn’t want to hear their voices. Not when they’re not real.

“Mikey, hey! Hey, open your eyes. Wake up!”

Shaking his head, Mikey feels a wash of relief blanket him. The pain subsides, almost as though it wasn’t there in the first place, and Mikey feels his body melt.

“Mikey?”

He blinks. Above him are three heads, each firmly attached to the rest of his brothers. No signs of damage. No signs of anything.

“Are you Ok?”

“Are you real?” Mikey asks back.

“Real?” Donnie repeats, placing a hand on Mikey’s head. “He’s got a fever.”

“You’re a hallucination,” Mikey accuses.

“No. We’re not,” Raph promises. “Can you feel a hallucination?”

Mikey doesn’t know. He tries to shrug but can’t.

“Don’t,” Leo orders. “You’re hurt. We’re not sure how badly. Stockman damaged you in ways we’re not sure you’ll heal from.”

Mikey doesn’t understand. He tries to push himself upright, but his body doesn’t respond.

“I can’t feel anything.”

There should be panic laced in his voice, but there is nothing but dullness. Like he’s accepted the worst already and can’t bring himself to care the second time around.

“Mikey, everything will be ok.”

“It better be.”

A ghost of Donnie’s smile returns and Mikey is sure that he couldn’t have concocted something like that up in his mind. Donnie’s smile changes every time, and even with his thirteen years, he’s never quite managed to catalogue them all.

A soothing hand rubs over his scalp, and it lull’s Mikey into sleep, feeling safe.

* * *

“Oh you poor turtle,” Stockman whispers. “So easily lured into a false sense of security.”

Mikey swallows down a sob of desperate hatred. How can Stockman be like this? How can the man torture Mikey in so many ways and show absolutely no remorse for his actions? Didn’t he call Mikey a child? Doesn’t that make it _so much worse_? And yet, Stockman is relentless. He allows Mikey to suffer, over and over, taunting him with safety and family.

“When will you learn?”

Never, apparently.

Mikey looks away, eyes catching the wall opposite. There’s nothing interesting there, but it’s better than allowing Stockman to see the tears he can’t will away.

“Your tears will do you nothing here.”

 _Obviously_ , Mikey thinks, _‘cause you’re a mad-man with no heart._

“You must think me heartless,” Stockman says, and Mikey’s stomach aches with worry that the man can read minds. “But I am merely a scientist. Bound by my need to discover. Your brother, the smart one, he would understand.”

“Donnie would never,” Mikey hisses, turning back to glares.

“Under the right circumstances, he would.”

“Liar!”

Stockman simply chuckles.

Mikey drifts in and out of consciousness with the flow of pain as Stockman continues his vicious experimentation.

A loud shout outside the door makes both of them pause. Mikey struggles against the pull of sleep and Stockman lifts a long knife in protection. A bang, a thump, and another shout has Stockman jumping and cursing under his breath.

“What is it now?”

Mikey is clutching desperately at hope. This feels real. This feels super real. When he pulls his arms against the iron-tight restraints, he feels a throb of pain lance through his wrists. That’s a good sign, right?

The sounds outside grow louder and clearer, and Mikey smiles triumphantly as he hears Raphael’s quick complaints and Leo’s orders. They’re fighting the foot; Mikey is sure of it.

“No, no, _no!_ ” Stockman screams in frustration. “Why do those wretched turtles always have to interfere with my plans?”

Stockman begins to frantically move around the room, unsure of where he’s going or what he wants to do with himself. Words tumble from his lips, but they’re so fast and so filled with science-y jargon that Mikey can’t make heads or tales of it. It’s closer to mumbles than real words.

Oh man, he can’t wait to get back to the lair and put this entire nightmare behind him. He’ll never forgive himself for putting his family through this, for extending the time that they’re apart. He should probably have made them a cake or something. Like, a ‘welcome home everyone but me’ cake. He could have easily turned the whole nightmare into a joke. His brothers didn’t need to know how hard the last six months were for him.

They didn’t need to know that he’d wake up every morning hoping that they’d be home. That he’d train alone, purposefully doing it wrong, hoping against logic that one of his brothers would correct him. That he would turn the TV volume so loud that it hurt even his own ears, just to try to coax an angry yell from a bedroom.

But nothing happened.

No one was there to make any of it happen.

It was just Mikey.

But not anymore.

“Come on dude, there’s no need to lose your cool,” Mikey jokes.

“There’s _every_ reason to lose my cool,” Stockman slaps back. “Do you have any idea what your biology could do for the medical industry? The lives that could be changed if they took what happened to you and altered it?”

“I’m not here for you to poke around in.”

“Think of all the lives this research could have saved.”

“I’ll be sure to pass that information onto Donnie.”

Stockman raises his eyebrows, and all the colour bleeds back into his face when three gunshots ring through the room, followed closely by the hollow thump of a body hitting the ground. Mikey knows what has happened without needing to see visual evidence.

Heart sinking, Mikey lets his head drop to his chest. Hallucination Stockman is still looking scared, but Mikey can hear the man’s laughter.

Why does he keep falling for it?

Why is he so _stupid?_

Stockman doesn’t say anything, but his chuckles still reverberate through the room, sending shivers through his bones.

He’s never getting out alive.

* * *

Mikey finds no sense in hoping. It’s detrimental. His hopes rise so high that the crash back down breaks bones. Though, that might just be Stockman. Mikey doesn’t know enough to guess about what the man is doing, only that it hurts, and it is, in every sense of the word, invasive.

Mikey has spent years being unfocused, distracted, lacking attention span; and now he’s quite grateful for it. For all the problems that it brings, it allows him to drift away from his situation. Maybe that’s adding to the hallucinations, maybe he should work on maintaining some focus, maybe he should try harder to escape, maybe his brothers will come maybe maybe maybe.

Mikey shakes his head weakly. He can’t keep letting himself think that the bros will show up. They’re out doing their thing, and that’s totally rad for them. Leo is probably doing that lame ‘mindfulness’ thing that he loves – that Mikey hates – and he’ll be a better ninja for it. Don will be at school somewhere, hidden but learning. Raph… well, he’ll probably be kicking butt and forgetting to take names. Classic Raph.

They’ll be perfectly safe; Mikey is sure of that. They’re the smart brothers. They’re the ones who never fail to look after themselves, who can fight their way out of anything. Mikey is, and always has been, the odd one out. He was the slowest to learn to read, the one who was still scared of the dark long before they learned the monsters were real, the one who takes the longest to perfect a move. Mikey is always the one who messes around, gets under everyone’s skin. The one who ruins everything.

His brothers would have gotten out of here five minutes after arriving. Not Mikey. He’s the Liability Turtle, the Stupid Turtle. Battle Nexus Champion? What a wasted title on him. If Leo hadn’t been taken out, they all know who would have deserved to win.

“My son.”

Mikey squeezes his eyes shut tight.

Splinter loves Mikey unconditionally. His brothers do, too. He’s sure of this. But that doesn’t mean he’s not a detriment to their family.

“Michelangelo, open your eyes.”

Turning his face away, Mikey waits for Stockman to start laughing.

“Sensei, what’s wrong with him?” April asks, her voice thick with concern.

“A deep psychological wound has been inflicted upon him.”

“A what?”

Casey, sounding caught between confusion and anger – a near-perpetual state for him – puts a gloved hand on Mikey’s head.

“Let’s get him down,” April suggests.

Two sets of hands and one set of claws begin to release Mikey from his binds. Casey is waiting, ready, to catch Mikey as he collapses forward.

“I’ve got you, man,” Casey promises.

One of Mikey’s arms are thrown over Casey’s shoulders, and April comes up to the other side of him, taking half of his weight. Mikey tries to find his feet, to get some ground, but he makes little to no progress. He’s broken.

“Mikey, can you talk?”

Mikey blearily opens his eyes and tilts his head to find April’s shining eyes staring at him. When he says nothing, her brow furrows, and her free hand comes up to stroke his cheek.

“You’re not real,” Mikey whispers.

If he says it enough, aloud and internally, maybe he’ll prepare himself for the inevitable.

“Deep psychological wounds,” Splinter repeats. “Stockman has shown him things.”

“Mikey, don’t be weird, bro. We’re real. We’re super real. Here, punch me!”

Mikey wants to smile. Surely punching Casey won’t be enough to prove that he exists, but it’s such a Casey thing to suggest. They keep moving, Mikey’s feet scraping along the floor. The hallways look the same, and that only solidifies that things aren’t real. That they can’t be real.

That is until sunlight burns Mikey’s eyes. He closes them quickly, feeling the heat of the sun warming his skin.

“Mikey!” Raph shouts.

New arms grab him, and he’s carried into the Shellraiser.

“Lay him here,” Donnie orders.

Mikey is placed on one of the seats which has been reclined far enough that it can function as a small bed. Stockman’s face flickers in front of his face, and Mikey tries to break away.

“Keep him still!” Leo shouts. “Mikey, you need to calm down! You’re safe!”

“No, I’m not!” Mikey shouts back. “I’m not safe. Where are you? Why haven’t you come yet?”

“We’re right here, bro,” Raph tells him.

“He said this inside too. He thinks we’re not real,” Casey says.

“What? Why?” Leo asks. There’s a pregnant pause. “Stockman.”

The name is spoken like a curse.

“Indeed. Your brother needs time to adjust. He’s suffered, and we might not know the extent of it until he’s accepted we’ve truly come to save him.”

It all sounds super convincing. He can feel their hands on his face, he can smell the soap that Raph uses, has used, since they met Casey. Some ‘I’m a man and I want you to know it’ brand that Casey keeps buying. It’s all Raph gets for Christmas and Birthday. Mikey used to hate it, but now it’s so familiar, so calming, that he breathes it in deep.

“Mikey, come on, we’re right here.”

Mikey sighs. Maybe they are, maybe they’re not. Only time will tell.

* * *

The Shellraiser rumbles along, and the pain in Mikey’s side is gone. His brothers and father are still stood at his side, no matter how many times he closes his eyes and opens them again. April, he decides, is driving. The ride is far too smooth to be Casey, who seems to have a grudge against _everything_ that exists between him and wherever he needs to go; grates, manhole covers, fire hydrants.

Donnie has his hands all over Mikey, impossibly gentle, as he tries his best to fix whatever Stockman has done. He mutters things, things that Mikey either doesn’t fully understand or can’t hear. Leo talks to splinter in low tones, and he sounds angry, but it’s hard to be sure. Meanwhile, Raph stays by Mikey’s head, talking in an achingly calm voice that is so unlike Raph but comforting regardless.

“—and when we get home, I’ll order a dozen pizza’s, and we can watch TV, whatever you want bro, and we can all sleep in the TV area. Splinter won’t make you train for ages, so you can be as lazy as you want. You won’t have to move for anything, and we’ll never let you get hurt again.”

He talks like this the entire way to the alleyway where their manhole over is. Slowly, with careful hands, his brothers help him up and out of the van. Raph jumps down first, staying on the rungs of the ladder to allow Leo and Don to lower Mikey down.

“Hold onto my back, yeah?” Raph tells him.

Mikey does, arms wrapped around his brother's neck as the two descend into the sewers. Leo, Don, Splinter, April and Casey follow, and soon, they’re winding through familiar tunnels and entering their home.

From where his head is resting on Raph’s shoulder, he can see everything is right where he left it. It’s almost as though his brothers never made it back to the lair before they came after him. His Nunchuck’s are still in the dojo, the trash bag full of pizza boxes and soda cans are peaking out from behind the sofa, his pile of dusty comics is sitting atop the table in front of the TV.

It’s so familiar, so much like home, that emotion wells up inside his chest. He can’t contain it, and a tear slips loose. It tickles his cheek, but he can’t find the strength to wipe it away. He remains near limp on his brother’s back, and they move towards Donnie’s lab.

“You said – you said sofa,” Mikey croaks into Raph’s ear.

Raph’s entire body shakes as he chuckles.

“I know I did, lil bro, but Donnie needs to check you over first.”

“He did in the van.”

“That wasn’t nearly extensive enough. I need to check—”

Donnie disappears first, and then everyone else. Mikey blinks. One moment he’s in the lab, the next he’s on the cold metal table with Stockman looming over him, holding a pair of goggles in one hand and a needle in the other.

“Hate to have cut that short,” he mutters. “But I need you awake for the next part.”

He leans forward, bracing Mikey’s head against the table and bringing the needle close to his eyes.

“NO!”

Through the door bursts Donnie, Bō staff pointed towards Stockman. Mikey slumps. The last one was nice, he guesses, but the reality crumbling down leaves him feeling emptier than he’s familiar with. How many times can he go through this before he completely loses his mind?

There’s a flurry of movement, an ear-piercing scream, and then Stockman is on the floor. Donnie prods him with his staff, before turning his gaze to Mikey.

“Hey.”

Mikey allows his gaze to linger for a second, but the moves it away, searching the room for the boxes that once held two of his brothers. There’s nothing. Donnie steps back into Mikey’s line of sight, and then trails his eyes over Mikey’s body, paling as he takes in whatever this version of Mikey’s injuries are.

“Mikey, I need you to talk to me, bro. What did he do to you? I can’t—oh, shell. Is that a dialysis machine?” Donnie mutters, a hand reaching towards Mikey’s side.

Mikey has no idea what Donnie is talking about. He looks down disinterested and sees a machine catching the blood that is slowly seeping from Mikey’s side. There’s a tube running from the other end and into Mikey’s arm, and through the clear casing, he can see his own blood being pushed back into the crook of his arm.

“It’s stopping you from bleeding out,” Donnie says, horrified. “What was he doing?”

Mikey scrunches his nose up at the sight and turns back away. A twinge of pain causes him to jerk, which in turn amplifies the pain.

“Stop moving!”

Mikey does, but, he tells himself, not because the voice ordered him to, but because he knew it would hurt less.

“Mikey, do you—are you OK?”

“Why?”

Whatever Donnie had been expecting him to say, it clearly wasn’t that. Mikey takes a little satisfaction in the reaction before he remembers that this might not be real.

“Why?” Donnie repeats, dumbly. “What—you know what? Doesn’t matter. I’m going to get you out and I’ll run tests at the lair.”

The idea of more ‘tests’ sends a thrum of terror through Mikey, but he ignores it for now. He doesn’t have time for panic. He needs to keep himself focused on knowing this isn’t real. That’ll lessen the blow when reality punches him in the gut for the hundredth time.

“Come on, Mikester,” Donnie whispers, as the tip of his staff snaps the cuffs. Mikey tumbles forward, and any attempts to stop himself face-planting the floor are not reciprocated by his arms or legs. “Oof.”

Donnie grabs him in time and lowers him slowly.

“Can you walk?”

Mikey nods. He tries to stand up, to even sit up and fails miserably. Donnie sighs and packs his stuff away.

“Raph and Leo are holding off the Foot. Casey is there too, but I doubt he’s being useful.”

“I resent that.”

Casey steps into the doorway, head bleeding but smiling manically. His clothes hang off him in tatters, and in his hand, he’s holding the grip of his baseball bat; that’s all that’s left of it.

“Help me here, Case.”

Casey’s smile drops away when he sees Mikey and he rushes forward, taking Mikey’s other arm.

“Wait!” Don cries out. “Casey, can you grab those goggles?”

“What am I, your pack mule?” Casey grumbles as he snatches the goggles and loads them into his golf bag.

“Something like that.”

Mikey is dead-weight, and if they encounter a fight, he’s going to be completely useless against any enemies. Despite this, they haul him into the hallway and up a steep, narrow stone stairwell. Mikey has enough strength to use his legs, but not enough to truly take any of his weight. Just enough that his toes don’t get scraped off.

“Just a little further,” Donnie mutters, his voice strained from the effort.

Mikey doesn’t bother. Interacting with images concocted by his own brain won’t be a good start to accepting this is over before it’s finished.

When they reach the top of the stairs, Donnie and Casey gather speed. The hall before them is littered with sparking solider bodies, and Raph and Leo are stood back-to-back, heaving with exertion, but eyes sparkling.

“You got ‘im!” Raph crows, throwing a fist in the air.

“We have, but he’s in a rough state.”

Raph rushes forward and relieves Casey from his duty. April, Leo and Casey then lead the way back to the van, weapons raised and ready for any problems that may come. However, Mikey thinks that all issues may have been taken care of, since they’re lying on the floor, sparking.

“We’ll get you home, little brother,” Raph says.

And doesn’t that taste familiar? Mikey has done this before, only to wake up on the table in excruciating pain.

He thinks he may have passed out because the next thing he knows, he’s laying on the floor of the van with Donnie hovering at his side.

“We’re going to have difficulties making sure he doesn’t bleed out,” he says, as though responding to a question. “Baxter had a monstrosity helping him to clean Mikey’s blood and send it back into his systems. It’s quite ingenious, actually, but without that, he’s losing a lot of blood.”

“Less chatter, bro, and more doing. How do we help?”

“Keep pressure on the wound.”

“But it’s huge,” Leo worries.

“I know.”

Mikey wakes up again in Donatello’s lab. It smells funny, like bleach and blood and desperation. He can hear Leo explaining to someone what has happened, but Mikey isn’t paying attention to that. He’s watching closely as Donnie places an oxygen mask over his face and talking about how ‘it’s going to hurt, and I’m sorry, but there’s no other way’.

“It’s going to be a messy scar but there’s not much I can do about that. I need to clear out the area to ensure it won’t get infected because I’ll be honest, Mikey, I’m not sure you’ll survive that. Stockman did a lot of damage in a short amount of time.”

Watching through narrowed eyes, Mikey tries to scrutinise everything that Donnie is doing. All he needs is one slip-up, one misspoken word, and he’ll have his proof that this isn’t real. Everything feels awfully familiar, though, and it’s getting harder to convince himself.

“You OK?”

Mikey shakes his head and turns to face the ceiling. The cracks from experiments gone awry decorate the grey blanket, and Mikey smiles as he remembers the time he scared Donnie into releasing a pressurised something-or-other, and it lodged itself into the ceiling to the tune of Donatello’s panicked screeching. He’d forgotten about that.

“Right, prepare yourself. This is going to sting more than when you fell and tore open your knee.”

That’d hurt really bad, Mikey remembers, and he winces in preparation. When something cold touches his side, he blocks out the room by squeezing his eyes shut.

“Don’t move,” Donnie warns.

Mikey shoves a fist into his mouth, trying to quell the screaming, but it’s like someone has set fire to his skin, and the flames are licking his entire torso.

“Raph, help hold him still!”

Footsteps, familiar and comforting, manage to find their way through Mikey’s piercing cries of pain. Hands gripped his shoulders and another pair wrap around his ankles.

“You’re OK, Mikey. You’ll be fine.”

It’s Raph’s voice, but not his temperament. It can’t be him.

“Can’t you give him something for the pain?” implores Leo.

“I wish. We don’t know exactly what’s running through his systems, so giving him something could overload his systems.”

“Dammit, when I get my hands on everyone involved in this—”

“Not the time, Raph.”

Mikey’s screams taper off, though the pain still ravishes his body. Hearing his brothers like this, it’s enough to convince him.

“What’s that, Mikey?”

Mikey hadn’t even realised he was saying anything, but through the cracks of his eyelids, he can see Raph’s face contorted with worry.

“I think he’s saying, ‘not real’. What’s not real?”

It makes Mikey’s head hurt to look down at where Leo is stood, holding down his ankles.

Saying something might make this end sooner, but Mikey isn’t sure he’s ready to let it go. His brothers’ hands feel real, and their worry warms him. It’s too good to give it up so soon, no matter how much pain he’s in.

“Mikey?”

Closing his eyes, Mikey endures Donnie’s ministrations with gritted teeth. He tries not to jerk away, and the hands holding him still work hard at being comforting.

“I’m sorry,” Don repeats, every time Mikey winces. “I’m so, so sorry.”

It seems to take an age, but soon it’s clean and Mikey breathes a sigh of relief, along with his brothers.

“We need to stitch it up,” Donnie explains. “But now that you’re not in danger of getting an infection, I want to test your blood. See if Stockman injected you with anything.”

Mikey doesn’t respond. He trusts Donnie, even if deep down he knows he shouldn’t. Everything he’s feeling is created by Stockman and his endless cruelty. It’s best to let the simulation, or hallucination, or whatever this is, continue on without interference.

Donnie loads a small vial with Mikey’s blood, and the hands restraining him disappear. Mikey has to check to make sure his brothers, real or not, are still there.

“You’re being awfully quiet, Mikey.”

It’s not a question. Raph is simply noting a fact with a strained grimace.

“I don’t think you’ve ever gone this long without talking,” Leo laughs.

“Six months.”

“What was that?” Donnie asks, turning away from the spinning machine.

“Six months,” Mikey croaks.

The words hurt to speak, like sandpaper rubbing on sunburned skin, and the reaction it elicits hurts more so. It’s true though. While he wasn’t completely mute, the longer the days alone became, the less he spoke. It didn’t take him long to learn that no matter how hard he worked to garner a response; none would come. He’d stopped talking by the time the first month was through, and it was painful. He wasn’t used to absolute silence, but there was no stopping it. Humming, tapping his feet, even listening to the TV didn’t fill the silence and eventually, he gave up on it all.

“Geez, Mike, we’re sorry. We never meant to leave you alone.”

“Yeah, bro, none of us knew the others were going.”

Mikey understands. A complete lack of communication is at fault here, and he gets it. A part of him wishes that he, too, had thought to leave, but he had nowhere to go. Nothing he wanted to do more than be at home. And some stupid, naive innocent part of himself had been waiting for his brothers to return.

“It’s OK.”

“It’s not. We really are sorry, Mikey.”

Nodding makes his vision swim, but Mikey does it anyway.

“His blood is clear. Hey, Mikey?”

Mikey turns his head to bring Donnie into his line of vision.

“I’m going to give you a sedative, OK? It’ll make the rest of this painless and give you time to heal naturally. You’ll feel a little prick and then you’ll get to heal in peace.”

Mikey allows it. Anything is better than the pain, and maybe he’ll sleep in real life.

“Ok, count down from ten for me?”

The drowsiness is instantaneous.

“Ten, nine… eight… seven.” His words are already slurring, but Donnie watches on expectantly. “Six… five… four…”

The pull of sleep is strong, and he can’t keep his eyes open any longer.

“Three.”

“Raph, grab the oxygen mask? Leo, bring that table over here.”

“Two.”

“Sleep tight, little bro. You’ll be OK when you wake up.”

“One.”

* * *

Mikey’s dreams are vivid and hard to grasp. Things happen. His body seems to go through its life span in seconds, and there’s a human child there, who becomes an infant. There’s a ball pit and a beach on the moon. He’s building sandcastles with the baby, and then he’s staring up at the stars.

“I’m not in pain anymore,” he whispers to the boy.

“That’s good.”

“It is. And my brothers came back.”

“I don’t have any brothers.”

“That sucks. Brothers are the best.”

“I wish I had brothers.”

The small boy curls up into Mikey’s side and then _poof_ , he’s gone. Some part of Mikey’s brain rationalises that the boy has woken up. Mikey is still asleep, so he’s still on the moon, the water lapping at his feet and the Earth in the distance lighting up with a sunrise on the Northern hemisphere.

* * *

Waking up is slow and warm. It’s almost like it used to be when he lived with his brothers and went to sleep in his own bed. It reminds him of times when he didn’t fear for his life when he knew his family were nearby and things were a-ok.

He blinks once. Twice. Three times.

Home.

“Mikey? You awake, bro?”

With another slow blink, Mikey turns to find Raph lounging on the beanbag beside his bed. Raph is pale, mouth turned down and bandana dirty with sweat and crumpled with worry.

“Yeah.”

“Thank god. Yo! Guys! Mikey’s awake!”

Mikey flinches from the loud voice but hesitantly smiles as his big brothers enter the room.

“How’re you feeling, Mikey?” Donnie asks in what Mikey can only describe as his ‘doctor voice’.

“Um.” Mikey scrunches up his face and assesses his body. “Sore.”

“To be expected. You’ve been through a lot.”

Memories slam into Mikey so hard that his body jolts. Visions of his brother's dead bodies swim before him, Stockman with his awful smile holding a knife, Donnie telling him that he would have to rescue himself, himself, alone, in the lair.

“Don’t panic, Mikey. Breathe for me.”

Donnie is at his side in an instant, cold fingers touching his forehead, feeling for his pulse, rubbing his shoulder comfortingly. Mikey tries to swallow down the heaving breaths and tenses against the shaking.

“What’s happening?” a voice, mangled from the thumping of his heart in his ears, asks.

“He’s having a panic attack. Mikey, you’re at home, in your bed, surrounded by your brothers.”

“I’m not,” Mikey gasps. “This isn’t real.”

“What’s happening?”

“He’s been in Stockman’s virtual world too long. He doesn’t know what’s real anymore.”

“This _isn’t real,_ ” Mikey repeats. “You’re not real. Nothing is real. Please. _Please._ ”

Hands, cold, three-fingered hands, touch his arms, his face, his stomach. He realises that he’s convulsing but can’t stop it. His breath is coming quick and fast, but he feels dizzy and sick. Bile rises up his throat, burning as it goes, and trickles out of the corner of his mouth.

“Please, Stockman. Let me go home. Please.”

“I’m going to have to sedate him.” Donnie reaches into his medical bag. “Hold him down.”

“STOP!” Mikey screams. “I just want to go home!”

Within seconds, Mikey feels another pinch on his arm, and a weight settles over him. He bucks against it, but nothing changes. He’s loosing to the dark, and there’s no way to getaway.

“Sleep, Mikey. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

Hallucination or not, warmth uncoils in his stomach, and Mikey finally drifts into something resembling calmness.

* * *

When consciousness greets him, it’s with fingers trailing down the bridge of his nose. It tickles, and Mikey squirms away from it.

“That used to send you straight to sleep when you were an infant.”

Mikey turns his head towards the voice and squints. The lights are dimmed, but he can see his father sat beside his bed, smiling sadly.

“Michelangelo, my son, how’re you feeling?”

Mikey looks around the room. There’s Donnie’s medical bag by his bed, Raph sleeping on a mattress that someone had dragged in, and soft music playing. Definitely Splinter’s choice. It’s too boring to belong to any of them.

“Am I really here?”

“You are.”

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

Splinter considers this for a moment.

“What was consistent through your last encounters with us?”

“I dunno.”

“Think, Michelangelo. Think, and we can help you.”

Thinking hurts his head, as it always has done. More-so now though, since he’s obviously recovering from trauma.

“I guess… I guess you all did things I expected you to do, or you did the exact opposite.”

“Would you elaborate?”

“Um. Sure.”

Mikey struggles to sit up. Splinter leans over and helps, puffing up the pillows to settle Mikey into a more comfortable position.

“My first one was Donnie. He told me I had to rescue myself. And then it was Leo and Donnie and they were both killed. And then Donnie came back, but he said he hadn’t been there before. And then Zombie Leo and Raph attacked. And then… I don’t know. It’s all messy. I was here for one bit of it. But I was paralyzed.”

“And now?”

Mikey wiggles his toes and fingers.

“Now I’m not, I guess. I couldn’t move much in the others.”

“I’m not sure it would be wise to test your full range of motion since your body is healing and needs rest to do that. However, you can bend your knees and elbows. Prove to yourself that you’re no longer restrained.”

That sounds like a good idea. Hissing through the pain, Mikey bends both knees and then his elbows. He definitely can move. That makes him feel much better.

“I’m not sure what I’ll do if this isn’t real.”

* * *

Donnie comes by soon after, and he gives Mikey some food. Warmed up pizza and a glass of water.

“I’d really prefer you had something more healthy, but we’ve not had time to go out and get anything real. That'll have to do for now.”

The tray is laid across his lap, but Mikey makes no move to touch it.

“What’s wrong, Mikey? It’s your favourite.”

He’s not hungry. His stomach is protesting from just looking at it. He turns his face away.

“Do you… want something else?” Donnie asks.

“No.”

“At least drink the water.”

The water almost tips over the edges as his shaking hands grip the glass. When he manages a few sips, though, it soothes the aches in his throat and his sighs in relief.

“You’re really here?” Mikey asks. “You really came for me?”

“We will always come for you,” Raph says, voice croaky from sleep. “I promise ya that.”

Mikey nods and sets the glass down.

“I missed you guys.”

Donnie moves the tray to the floor and climbs onto the bed, wrapping his arms around Mikey and holding him tightly. Raph joins in seconds later, and then Leo.

“We missed you too, Mikey.”

Safe. Mikey finally feels safe again.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Ninja Turtle fic, and likely not my last. I'm a huge fan, have been for years, and I've had this story rattling around in my brain for years, but only after reading a TMNT fic did I decide to write it out.  
> I hope you all enjoy it!  
> If you notice anything that you believe needs to be changed, drop a message.  
> If you liked it, drop a Kudos.  
> If you want to say anything about anything ever, leave a comment.
> 
> I hope you all have a wonderful day!


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